kojotutorial: supersimple pom pom hat from an old sweater

I’ll be honest- Day 4 of the I Heart New Year’s Challenge was the one I was most looking forward to. Make something? Yes please.

If you haven’t made anything yet, I tell you, one of these little pom pom hats can be whipped up in half an hour, so you still have time… I can’t wait to hear about what else y’all made!That being said, I recently received a whole box of gorgeous, cozy, Goodwill bound sweaters. My immediate inclination in such instances is to throw them in the washer and dryer and FELT them! However, the sweaters in this particular batch were mostly cashmere (or cashmere blends), so I decided to make them into warm, fuzzy, comfy hats for Burke and his cousins. The method I used is a combo of the lovely chez beeper bebe tutorial and an idea I saw at Denver’s oh-so-fabulous Holiday Handmade craft fair (I don’t remember the designer, but she’d refashioned old sweaters into darling little elf hats and sweater pants).

To make one of these hats, you’ll need:

-a soft and cuddly sweater

-a sewing machine

-a couple of pom poms

1. Turn your sweater inside out. Trace the hat shape (I used the one from chez beeper bebe, but you could also pretty easily use measurements instead… for the 6-12 month size, the width/soon-to-be-circumference should be about 16″ and the height about 9″, for the 12-18 month size, the width/diameter/circumference should be about 18″ [still 9″ for the height] and for the 18-24 month size the width/circumference grows to 20″ [again, 9″ for the height]). Cut out your soon-to-be hat.

2. Sew along the edge of your ‘hat,’ leaving about a 1/4″ seam.

3. Turn inside out. Tie pom poms on each ‘ear.’ Cover the bean of your darling little one with this supercute number and he gets ever cuter. Send a couple of these fuzzy numbers to your nieces. Make some more? 🙂

That's really cute. When you said "width" did you mean circumference of the hat? Cuz that would be a really big hat! I'm planning on making one of these cute things for my daughter. What a great way to use those sweaters we love but don't wear anymore. Thanks!

another great idea i was unsure of myself doing anything with an old sweater.for fear
it would go astray. well you surely gave me a new idea for other things. like a baby
bunting. even gloves. tracing my fingers securing it from fraying sew around and
wha la gloves. thanks

Hi, Super cute hats and idea. Instead of “width” of hat, shouldn’t it be the “diameter” or circumference like Tammy said? I am thinking of the newbies out there that would cut the entire width of the sweater! 99% of us know what you are talking about but there are those that wouldn’t. On my way to Goodwill Store for sweaters now!!!

Hey Brenda! I think you could probably use an old handmade sweater- just give yourself plenty of margin so that when you’re sewing, you’re still stitching along the tight weave instead of the fraying edge. 🙂
If you try this out, will you let me know if it worked???

[…] You can try some of the little decorative techniques as seen in this post at Make It And Love It, a hat with ears and pom poms, or a cat hat. I didn’t know how much the recipients would like such whimsical hats, so I […]